Aaron Wise; Civil Rights Leader, Rabbi of Influential Synagogue

Aaron M. Wise, civil rights leader and pioneering rabbi who helped develop the nationally influential Adat Ari El synagogue and educational center, has died. He was 86.

Wise, who served the congregation from 1947 to 1978, died Monday in Los Angeles and was buried Wednesday after services at his synagogue in what is now Valley Village.

The rabbi joined the temple less than a decade after it was founded in 1938 by 15 families as the first synagogue in the San Fernando Valley. It now serves 950 families.

For many years it was known as the Valley Jewish Community Center, later adding “Temple” to the name. Affiliated with the Conservative branch of Judaism, the synagogue later adopted the name Adat Ari El, which is Hebrew for Lion of God Congregation.

As leader of the fledgling congregation in North Hollywood, Wise developed the center’s school, community education programs and facilities. In 1949, he co-designed stained glass windows for the David Familian Chapel with Universal Studios artist Mischa Kallis.

Under his guidance, the temple gained a national reputation for its pioneering adult education classes, its Darshanim program that offers lay congregants the opportunity to explain the weekly Torah reading during Saturday morning services, and its commitment to equal status for women. (In 1986, the temple became Judaism’s first major Conservative congregation in the world to hire a woman as a pulpit rabbi.)

Wise helped create the Valley’s first Jewish day camp and nursery school and was a leader in establishing the West Coast branch of the University of Judaism. After retirement as rabbi, Wise co-created and taught the 10-week university course “Making Marriage Work.”

Born in Cincinnati, Wise graduated from the University of Cincinnati and the Jewish Theological Seminary. Ordained in 1938, he served as rabbi of the Nott Terrace Synagogue in Schenectady, N.Y., and had a weekly radio broadcast.

A lifelong proponent of equal rights, Wise continued his efforts after moving to Los Angeles in 1947. He marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in the South and became an early opponent of the war in Vietnam.

Wise served as president of the Southern California Board of Rabbis and was a member of the executive counsel of the Rabbinical Assembly of America.

Wise is survived by his wife, Miriam; daughter Tamar and son Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom; two brothers, Sol and Isadore, and four grandchildren. Another son, Jonathan, preceded him in death.

The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the Aaron M. Wise Scholar-in-Residence Fund or the Hesed Fund at Adat Ari El; to “Making Marriage Work” or the Masorti Movement at the University of Judaism, 15600 Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90077; or to Yeshivat Har Ezion, Ezion Foundation, 160 Broadway, Suite 1000, New York, N.Y. 10038.